Sony's credit rating cut to "junk"...Implications for Spider-Man?

[Dream]

FordSVT wrote:

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Or Disney could buy the rights to Spider Man, that would be the next best thing.

They don't have to buy the rights back. Eventually the Spidey movies will start making less and less money and Sony willl stop making them. By just waiting it out, Marvel can get the rights back without spending a dime.

The rights already reverted for Dardevil, Blade, Hulk, and Punisher.

[Agenda]

I see Spider-Man as a franchise that could keep going indefinitely. The last one wasn't even that great. IMO, it felt like an inferior retread of the first movie. Even still it made a ton of money.

[MacLeod]

Dream wrote:

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Saying your third most popular of the current generation consoles is just a nice way of saying your dead last!

But Sony have to answer why they are last, true the 460 had a years head start, but the Wii didn't have that and still came out on top (no doubt because it was the cheaper of the 3).

What did Microsoft get right with the 360, first to market, exclusive titles, Xbox Live etc...

After all at this stage I suspect both Microsft and Sony have spend signfignat sums of money on their next gen consoles.

[Christopher]

Beyond Antares wrote:

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I'm not that enthused about Marvel getting all their properties back. Major studios only have room for so many movie releases. Let's say Disney gets everything back and then realizes that only X-Men, Spider-Man, and Avengers are the real money makers, like DC focusing mainly on Batman and Superman. Say goodbye to solo movies for guys like Thor. At least with multiple companies you're more guaranteed you'll get more movies.

That's right. A better option would be to have different studios retain the rights so you could get more movies overall, but just have them coordinate creatively so that they could be in continuity with each other.

[Relayer1]

Beyond Antares wrote:

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I see Spider-Man as a franchise that could keep going indefinitely. The last one wasn't even that great. IMO, it felt like an inferior retread of the first movie. Even still it made a ton of money.

I liked it more !

[Admiral James Kirk]

Relayer1 wrote:

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I liked it more !

Agreed. The first Raimi Spider-Man movie was mediocre at best.

[Christopher]

I think both screen versions of Spidey are good, and I like it that they take very different approaches so that they complement each other. The first film suffered a bit by having to cover some of the same beats of the origin, but that shouldn't be a problem going forward (well, depending on what they do with the Osborns).

[Ian Keldon]

Captaindemotion wrote:

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And it should also be remembered that Marvel studios are notoriously thrifty. If Spidey's right go up to the highest bidder, then, while we would all like to think that Marvel is the webslinger's natural home - but they could well be outbid by another studio.

Or they might regain the rights for nothing, depending on the exact nature of their contract with Sony. If the rights are "non-transferrable", then ONLY Sony would have the right to make Spider-Man under that contract. An end to Sony's entertainment division might see an automatic reversion of rights to Marvel.

I don't KNOW that's the case, but such a restrictive contract would be typical of Marvel.

[Ian Keldon]

Kelthaz wrote:

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That is a good point that I hadn't considered. Sony might want to release a Spider-Man movie to compete with say Iron Man, but Marvel would have no reason to release both films and split the box office.

Splitting the box office is exactly WHY studios typically don't release big films at the same time by "gentlemens' agreement". Blockbuster-scale movies are too big of an investment to risk sending directly up against each other and not getting maximum box office in return.

[Dream]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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Or they might regain the rights for nothing, depending on the exact nature of their contract with Sony. If the rights are "non-transferrable", then ONLY Sony would have the right to make Spider-Man under that contract. An end to Sony's entertainment division might see an automatic reversion of rights to Marvel.

I don't KNOW that's the case, but such a restrictive contract would be typical of Marvel.

Well, let's look at how FOX tried to deal with its expiring Daredevil rights before it finally reverted back to Marvel.

There were NEVER any talks about selling the rights to any other studio right?

[Ian Keldon]

Christopher wrote:

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That's right. A better option would be to have different studios retain the rights so you could get more movies overall, but just have them coordinate creatively so that they could be in continuity with each other.

Except that the bean-counters don't think that way historically. Rob Liefeld had an X-Men related project turned down in Mavel's comic division because they "were not in the business of generating IP for Fox studios".

If those rumors about a more congenial attitude are true, that might be changing, but I haven't seen enough for me to consider it confirmed yet.

[Ian Keldon]

Dream wrote:

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Well, let's look at how FOX tried to deal with its expiring Daredevil rights before it finally reverted back to Marvel.

There were NEVER any talks about selling the rights to any other studio right?

I don't know, to be honest, but there isn't a "standard contract" for these things. Different franchise rights were sold off at different points in time with different CEOs in charge, so each contract may read differently.

[Dream]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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Splitting the box office is exactly WHY studios typically don't release big films at the same time by "gentlemens' agreement". Blockbuster-scale movies are too big of an investment to risk sending directly up against each other and not getting maximum box office in return.

Also during the summer, studios can get away with releasing a huge movie every single week. They can also release two different big movies on the same day so long as they are going for two very different audiences like... Twilight and James Bond.

[Venardhi]

Dream wrote:

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Saying your third most popular of the current generation consoles is just a nice way of saying your dead last!

The PS3 and 360 have both sold around 70 million consoles.

[Ian Keldon]

Dream wrote:

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Also during the summer, studios can get away with releasing a huge movie every single week. They can also release two different big movies on the same day so long as they are going for two very different audiences like... Twilight and James Bond.

Correct, which is why your example (Spide-Man vs Iron Man) would never happen. They're aimed at the same audience.